When visiting my dear friend the other day she showed me her poor overworked recipe box or should I say what used to be a box since the lid was no longer able to close. You see it was full of tiny little scraps of paper with recipes written on them.
Let’s take a look at the before picture:
Whenever she finds a recipe she likes she clips it out or grabs whatever little piece of paper she has nearby and writes down the recipe and shoves it into the box. I of course immediately wanted to suggest my method of organizing recipe scraps….using the old kind of photo album pages with the plastic cover that lifts up. I envisioned all those little scraps of paper all perfectly lined up in rows and each one in clear view. Yet before I even had a chance to say anything my dear friend suggested a method that she thought would work for her. Her idea was to use the plastic page protector pockets…you know the ones designed to put an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper into and that have the three holes punched on the sides to place in a binder. She then wanted to put labels on each “pocket”…one for each catergory….then sort all her recipe scraps into these catergories, place them into the appropriate pocket and then put all the pages into a binder. As soon as she said it I saw the error of my ways….we weren’t organizing these recipes for me…we were organizing them for her and this system is so brilliant for her for a number of reasons. First she didn’t have to spend too much time putting the system together. It took all of about a half hour to sort out the recipes and print off some labels. She still saves time looking for her recipes because now she has all her recipes sorted into catergories and she only has to grab the one pocket she needs. Finally it will be easy for her to maintain and that is key for her. As she clips new recipes she just pulls out her binder and drops them into the applicable pocket. No more stuffing them into that tiny little recipe box.
Yeah…mission accomplished!
Organizing for your personality is definitely the way to go!
Thanks to my dear friend for letting me share the pictures with you.
Jenny says
I do something similar with mine. I like that it’s in one binder and neat and tidy.
Thanks for sharing the pics.
Domestic Goddess says
Oh my gosh. My mom used to do that. She would have recipies cut from the newspaper, recipies she had copied from magazines in waiting rooms, copied onto deposit slips.
Used to drive me crazy!!! I remember as a teenager going through and organizing her recipies.
Mine are in a long – get this – microwave popcorn box. Perfect size for 4×6 recipe cards, sorted into about 20 categories.
It makes me happy.
Betty says
I never would have thought to organize my recipies. I just have books and magazine. Thanks for the suggestion. As I am working on organizing I will keep that in mind. It sounds like a great idea.
mira says
I have been looking for a way to organize my recipe and I think this might work for me. I’m going to give it a try, thanks for sharing.
Anonymous says
That looks like my recipe box, well one of them, I have a few LOL
I really need to get organized with that, thank you again for always having such great ideas 🙂
You know what my problem is though, I tend to just put thing wherever they fit, especially in the kitchen, I don’t have one cabinet for this or that, if I need to put something away I shove it where it has room.
What are your suggestions for kitchen organizing….can you do a post on what to put where etc….would love that, I need all the help I can get Laura 🙂
Have a great day 🙂
Leann says
I TOTALLY dig this idea!!! 🙂
Anonymous says
My mom puts her favorite recipes in a binder. Maybe one day I can sit down with this project and de clutter….maybe this winter.
Jen
Anonymous says
You are a nice friend. The recipes organized look great.
Mrs. Happy Housewife says
I put untried recipe clippings in my recipe binder like your friend did. Then, when I’ve tried the recipe and like it, it gets added to a regular recipe page in a page protector.
Erna says
Great idea! I have a whole bunch of recipes in a folder, perhaps I’ll invest in a smaller accordian (plastic) type of file sorter and do mine that way. Then, when I’m feeling like we need a new infusion of flavour and adventure in our home, I’ll just close my eyes and pick a random recipe! I have to make a new plan for recipes we use frequently though (my recipe box is almost full but not quite). . . I’m thinking a nicely laid out binder with favourite recipes in page protectors (to keep the splatter off) and also to enable me to print copies for my girls as they get older. It just seems like a lot of work right now . . . maybe when they’re older.
Tammi says
I do this, except each recipe gets its own sheet protector and then I created tabs on the sides. Throwing all the cookie recipes into ONE pocket doesn’t really seem that organized to me. Unless you only have a few recipes. I have two binders, one for desserts one for everything else. It’s nice to flip through and see all the pictures and recipes, each with its own page.
Jamie says
I’ve been dying to organize the 12 years of recipes I’ve collected. And I just so happened to buy a bunch of sheet protectors the other day- now I have something to do while my husband is traveling the next two weeks. Yay!